


Knowing My Place

by Fabrisse



Category: My Fair Lady (1964)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short exploration of Eliza's thoughts a few months after the end of the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing My Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catie56 (catharsis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catharsis/gifts).



Luxury. There are so many ways to define the term. For my father it would be having, not just enough to drink right now, but enough set aside to drink later. For the Colonel, it’s the Opera. Every new production at Covent Garden sees him in the center of the front row of the Grand Tier marveling at the beauty of a soprano’s voice or an alto’s fine leg. For Henry Higgins, it’s his library, and for his mother it’s freedom from Henry. For the servants, it’s having enough to eat and, for many of them, the chance to feel really clean.

For me, it’s the quiet. Colonel Pickering bought me a new budgerigar, Pip, when I came back, when I realized that this was my place. He’s a lovely turquoise shade, and he sings beautifully. His voice doesn’t need training; no one worries about his accent. His trill is a part of the quiet, not a disturbance of it.

In Angel Court, there was never any quiet, except for the dead -- and I wouldn’t be too sure about them. Lisson Grove wasn’t any better, worse when father was in his cups. He never beat us, not like some of the men did, but oh, how he could rattle on.

Here, I have a room to myself. Professor Higgins offered me a guest room near the library on my return, but I kept the little room on the top floor where he’d put me when the experiment began. It's at the back of the house, silent except when the dustmen come through or Pip takes it into his head to sing. The back parlor has been transformed into a feminine study for my at home days as well.

My biggest surprise upon my return was that I was still invited places. Colonel Pickering takes me to the ballet; he doesn’t care for it much, but a woman is not expected to go to a theater alone. Professor Higgins started taking me to lectures at the Athenaeum and the Royal Society, and his mother asks me to accompany her to the theater and the exhibitions at the Royal Academy. And from all these things, I have developed a place in society.

It’s a small place, but I _have_ been presented. Freddie’s sister, Clara, has become a true friend, and I have tea with her and some of her set at least once a month at the Savoy. I recommend the flowers for her mother’s dinner parties, and I have some reputation for my taste and my knowledge. All those years of selling violet posies for a penny, knowing how to keep lily of the valley fresh in May, how to cut roses into boutonnieres, those years have given me knowledge, and my knowledge is valued.

This world I’ve found myself in values knowledge as long as it comes from the right accent. More than my change in accent, though, is a change in demeanor. I walk with my head held high, as if the multitudes will part for me, and they do. A lady commands a place in the center of the pavement, not on the curb where I sold flowers, not against the wall, where I might be mistaken for a drab, but straight down the middle. Sometimes, it frightens me that all I had to do was learn to talk properly, and the world became a place of adventure and status.

In Angel Court, the ultimate luxury was to be truly warm in the winter. Adventures weren’t pleasant, and status meant you paid your rent on time and never had the collectors around.

It took me some time after I returned to realize that I had earned my place. It wasn’t the ball, although being mistaken for an Hungarian princess helped the Colonel and Professor Higgins to recognize my worth. It was when someone I knew slightly from my Angel Court days came and asked to learn how to speak properly.

Professor Higgins had no real interest in repeating the experiment, but he recognized the value of the result. It probably didn’t help that our prospective pupil was a Thomas rather than a Thomasina. The three of us at Wimpole Street sat down together and reviewed everything I had done in six months. At my recommendation several items around conversational topics were added, and other lessons, which had helped my intellectual development, but had no direct bearing on improving job prospects for Thomas, were dropped. We spoke to a practitioner and trainer in Alexander Technique to cover the deportment portions. A list of free lectures on interesting topics was provided to him, and I began instructing him on speech two hours a day after his work day ended at 3 pm. Professor Higgins sat in on our sessions twice a week, and held a separate session alone with him on my at home days, Wednesdays.

By the time Thomas left us for a position as a chauffeur, the Colonel, the Professor, and I had put together a business plan and rented a small shop front near the booksellers on Charing Cross Road and not too far from our friend who taught Alexander Technique. Three mornings a week I taught a women’s class on speaking correctly. Colonel Pickering found two lady typewriters to provide afternoon and evening instruction on the typing machines. The Professor came in two mornings a week for half hour sessions with each student, and Mrs. Pearce’s cousin, Alice, joined us, and stayed in a small flat over the shop, to handle questions of dress and hygiene. No woman who wanted to better her station was turned away.

After six months, we worked out a schedule for men who wanted to work in haberdashers, and several of the better Jermyn Street firms provided suitable men to cover Alice’s subjects without embarrassment.

Not everyone approved of our endeavor. My father thought I was helping to ruin freedom for the undeserving poor. There were people in Mrs. Higgins’ set who thought educating people would harm society’s little distinctions. She had even less time for them than I did. And I cannot repeat Clara Eynsford-Hill’s opinion of them in mixed company.

We were not inundated, but we provide a beneficial service to anyone who wants it. They pay what they can and several charitable institutions help cover additional expenses. When our first pupil was hired as a typewriter at a physician’s office, I finally knew that I had done right in returning to Wimpole Street and my somewhat irregular, if highly satisfactory, life with Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering.

I’d earned my luxury, and I loved listening to Pip sing the sun down in a little room filled with quiet.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Knowing My Place [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712591) by [podfic_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/podfic_lover/pseuds/podfic_lover)




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